Darren Moore delighted to see Lee Gregory end goal drought with Cambridge brace

Posted Sunday, October 16, 2022 by PA

Sheffield Wednesday boss Darren Moore was thrilled to see Lee Gregory finally end his goalless run and believes his match-winning brace at Cambridge will provide a confidence boost to the striker.

Moore’s side lifted themselves to within a point of second-placed Ipswich in League One with a 2-0 success at Cambridge, in which Gregory ended a seven-match scoreless streak with both goals.

“He took both of his goals really well today,” said Wednesday manager Moore. “I’m really pleased that he got the two goals, and the confidence that he’s been having in the last few weeks will be even more so now. It’s got us the three points today.

“We said coming into the game we wanted Gregory to score, just from a striker’s point of view because that’s what they pride themselves on, scoring goals.

“I’d just said to him don’t get too caught up or too uptight with it (not scoring) because you’re giving the team so much. Yes, you’re not scoring goals but you are giving us so much more in terms of the workrate, the energy, the link-up play.

“All those characteristics are ticking a box. I said the beautiful thing for you is the chances will be there.

“It’s a solid three points. Without playing great we got the job done.”

Cambridge boss Mark Bonner was forced into changing the system his side utilised, using three centre-backs for the first time during his tenure as head coach.

The U’s boss was encouraged by much of their performance despite the result, which saw Cambridge suffer a fourth successive defeat and sixth loss in seven league games.

“For two and a half years we’ve played a very similar system,” he said. “We’ve had to do some learning live in front of 6,500 people against a Championship team, which obviously is difficult when the first goal goes in after six minutes.

“We’ve played in a way that I actually quite like a lot, about the way we went about the game. We contained them in terms of free-flowing stuff. The top players in their team didn’t cause us huge problems.

“We had more ball, more passes, more possession, a few attempts on goal but one on target.

“The story of the game really is in the fact that there was a vulnerability about us defensively that gave them two fairly soft goals, and then there was just a lack of spark really and belief in a little bit of our attacking play.

“In the second half before their second goal we’ve got the ball for the whole of the game, but we need to have a bit more thrust about us to make a bit more of that.

“We’ve been in a really balanced game against a top team and it’s gone their way.”